The Long Road Home
by Elizabeth Potter
Summary: Harry uncovers someone's deepest secrets...


He had to keep moving to get through the coldness and bitterness.Harry trudged on. How had he ever gotten separated from the tour group?Why had he even come on this wizarding Canadian wilderness trip?It was like being severed from survival.He forged ahead.There had to be someone living around here.The snow pelted his face, the wind clawed at the hood of his jacket.There was no one.No one would be crazy enough to live out here, and Harry knew it.He could probably walk a hundred miles and find nothing, not that he could find anything.He could hardly see past the end of his nose.But he kept going.

Then he saw it.A light in the distance!His step picked up, his hopes lifted.It was a chance, a once in a lifetime chance.If only he could make it to the light…He pushed with all his might, though the snow.Had to make it, had to get to the light.

He came up to the door, exhausted.From the doorstep, he could see it was a fairly big house, with only one light outside that he'd been lucky enough to see.He pounded on the door, hoping that the people inside could hear him over the screaming wind.Nothing.He pounded again.He had to get inside to safety.He tried the handle, but it was locked.No!He'd come all this way, but for nothing, no.He tried the handle again, and this time the door swung easily open.He had pushed so hard against it that he practically fell into the room.

He looked around at the large, ornately decorated room.There was no one there that he could see, but who had unlocked the door.Maybe he was just delusional, and it had really been unlocked the first time, but… he could swear…

The room was full of interesting furnishings.A bear rug bestowed the wooden floor in front of a roaring fireplace, a large painting hung on the wall.Several long hallways were adjacent to the main room.There was a huge window at the back of the room, and for the first time, Harry noticed a large high- backed chair in front of the window.Harry jumped back, surprised, as the chair spun around.A man, maybe about Harry's age, sat in the chair.

"Come in," he said, looking at Harry, not blinking.

"Oh, sorry, I just, I had to get in, it's freezing outside, I was lost…" Harry's train of thought seemed to be lost too, but the blond-haired man just shrugged.

"You can stay," he said, expressionless.Harry felt embarrassed to have just barged in, and to have explained himself in a stuttering, shaken-up way.The man certainly knew it was cold outside if he lived here.He stood there, waiting for some type of instruction as to where he might stay.He began to pull off his snow-covered jacket.He shivered as some of the snow went down his back. 

"Would you like something to eat?" the man asked him. 

" Thank you," Harry replied.He was very hungry from the long trek. 

"Do you have a name?" the man asked, still sitting in the great black chair, and Harry realized that he hadn't even given his name. 

"I'm uh..." something about his situation didn't want to give away his name, "I'm, well, you can call me, uh, Camden."He didn't know where he had gotten this name, just picked it out of nowhere, he supposed.Did he even know anyone named Camden? 

"You can call me Drew," the man said.Harry followed him in to the dining room and took a seat opposite him on the long table.Drew just sat there, as though he expected the meal to appear.He couldn't be a wizard too…?No, Harry thought.Drew didn't know Harry was a wizard, wouldn't reveal his powers so openly. 

"The kitchen is that way," Drew pointed over his shoulder, not looking, "you can have what you want.I've already eaten."

All Harry could see was his eyes, hidden beneath rifts of white blond hair. His eyes were piercing, hiding, secretive. They were penetrating, like he could see right through Harry, through his disguise, read his thoughts, know everything Harry knew.His silent glare made Harry uncomfortable, sitting across from him.Harry stood up slowly, his chair screeching across the hardwood floor.Drew blinked. 

Harry walked into the spacious kitchen, hoping to find something edible.He found more than that.The refrigerator, a muggle food holder, was full of delicious foods and drinks. The cupboards held twice as much.The whole place was sparkling clean, spotless.How did Drew keep it that way?Harry wondered…He chose some chicken and corn.Corn made him remember once, back at Hogwarts, hid old school, when his scatterbrained professor had let loose a load of Cornish pixies.Harry grimaced.If only he were back at Hogwarts.He sighed sadly, sliding the food into the microwave to warm up.It was done in a matter of seconds, and he rejoined his host at the table.

Harry ate quickly, for the stoical expression on Drew's face felt like it was boring through his brain.Harry took his plate to the kitchen.He loaded it into the dishwasher, an ingenious muggle invention.He walked back into the dining room, trying to smother a yawn.Drew seemed to notice, for he directed Harry to his room, down a long corridor off of the main room.

Even the guest room was well kept.Harry lay back on the large, bed, not changing into pajamas, frankly because he had none.The expedition had been expected to get back before nightfall.He wondered what they were doing now.His pillow was rather lumpy.He fluffed it, but there was a hard something inside the pillowcase.Harry was determined, for some odd reason that he didn't know, to find out what it was.He opened the case to reveal a small book.A journal.He opened the book, careful not to mar any of its precious pages.The first page was blank except for one word.Draco.

Harry was startled.Draco?His eyes skimmed over the first page excitedly. 

Today my dad bought me this present, so I'm using it, but only to make Dad happy.I hate writing; we do too much of it in school anyways.But Dad says if I keep my grades up, he'll will the mansion and the family fortune to me when he dies. I hope it's soon, cus I really want Malfoy Manor now!

_ _

Harry stopped reading abruptly. Draco Malfoy?How did his diary get here?

_Today I got expelled from Hogwarts.Big deal. They're all a bunch of mudbloods anyway.I hated Hogwarts, I still do, and I always will.The headmaster, Dumbledore, is a loony!I can't believe he expelled me. Anyone who goes there is a loony. I wish I could buy Hogwarts so I could sack dumb old Dumbledore.Maybe that's what I'll do.He said I was trying to kill Ron Weasley.But you would too if he said about you what he said about me.I wasn't really going to do it anyway.He's so stupid…_

_ _

Harry couldn't believe what he was reading.Draco Malfoy's journal.He could remember distinctly when Draco had threatened to kill his best friend Ron Weasley.It was during their sixth year at Hogwarts, when Harry was sixteen.Draco Malfoy had just gotten his drivers' license, a kind of muggle thing which his Draco's dad had felt important, in case he were ever to go into muggle business.So Draco was, of course and as usual, swinging the shiny new keys to his car everywhere he went, bragging about the new car his father had bought for his sixteenth birthday, which all of the children that came from muggle families were in awe over.Except Harry of course, because Harry hardly ever saw the light of day, never mind a fancy expensive car, at the Dursley's house.So Ron had suggested they go into the Slytherin dorm, where Draco took up residence, and steal his car keys, maybe just take them captive for a while.Harry didn't think this was too good of an idea, and neither did Hermione Granger, one of Harry's other bossy yet protective friends.So Ron, being the defiant child that he was, snuck into the dorm that night using an invisibility spell they had just learned in potions.He swiped the keys, which lay shining on Draco's dresser.The next morning Draco was so furious and upset that he broke into the Gryffindor dorm, convinced that it was Harry Potter who had stolen his prized possession.When he found them in Ron's trunk, he was so mad that he began threatening Ron within inches of his life, even once going so far as to lead him almost into a whomping willow, and a very active one at that.Harry had saved him at the last minute, fortunately.This was, seemingly enough, the action for which Draco Malfoy had been expelled, and thus, the start of his infamous criminal record.No one really knew what had happened to him after that.

_Well, since I haven't written to you in a while, I guess I'll give it a try.Maybe talking to someone will make things better.Yesterday my dad died, and only now I realize that he was perhaps one of the most important people in my life.I know, I know, save it for the funeral, but I'm not going.I'm leaving.I hate this place, I hate the people who live here, I hate everyone.I just need to get away.My mom, she's totally torn by dad's death, and I guess so am I.I really need to leave, get out on my own, start over.So I'm going to.I'm taking this journal with me too.And just so you know, he didn't leave me Malfoy Manor, he gave it to Mom.I was mad about that, but I don't want Dad taking that to his grave, so to speak.He'll already be mad enough at me.I mean, I'm a failure, I'm the opposite of everything he wanted me to be.He wanted me to be the highest in my class, and I got expelled.He wanted me to be a great and powerful ruler, but everybody I know hates me.And I hate them back.I just gotta get out of here._

_ _

Harry had never really known the sensitive side of Draco Malfoy, but he supposed this was the closest he would ever get.He wondered where Draco had gone. 

Well here I am.I pretty much wandered all the way from England.But I'm in northern Canada.How did I get here, you ask.Well, I took a couple random muggle boats, bought some muggle appliances, put me stuff in a suitcase, heck, I fit right in.Well, then I figured out where I was, right around the border between the United States and Canada.I hiked up into northern Canada, where I am now, and built a house.Well not really built, actually I enchanted a pile of sticks, but nobody needs to know that, right?I put these muggle appliances in my house so if any muggles, wanderers or so, come by, they won't suspect I'm a wizard.No wizard would keep that kind of primitive junk in his house.Well, except me, I guess.Anyway, that's where I am now, just to keep you informed.Not that you care.Maybe someone does…I'm living under the alias of Drew (it sounds kind of like Draco: how clever of me…) No one would ever guess it's me.I guess being alone changes a man.

Harry was reading the words, but he was not understanding them.Drew was really his old school rival, the infamous, expelled, spiteful, cowardly Draco Malfoy?No… it couldn't be.There must be a mistake. His eyes ran over the pages, but he could find no mistake.He, right now, was in the same house as his worst enemy, the same one who had all his life wanted to kill him, or somehow seek revenge for a crime unknown to Harry, besides dislike.

Suddenly he heard silent, sneaking footsteps.Harry panicked.Did Draco know his secret as well?He jammed the book back into the blue pillowcase just as the footsteps approached.Harry held his eyes shut, mocking sleep.The door creaked softly and opened, just a crack, and the same pair of glaring eyes leered in at Harry, who was lying rather awkwardly atop the covers, his eyes shut tight, not daring to open.The footsteps disappeared quietly, catlike as they had come.Harry let out one sigh of relief and dozed off. 

Harry rubbed his eyes sleepily.He gazed over at the green numbers on the alarm clock next to his bed.It was 8:00; he had been asleep for almost seven hours.He felt under his pillow for the journal.It was gone.He was here during the night, to reclaim his journal.He knows who I am, Harry thought dazedly.I know he knows.He had always known there was something about Draco Malfoy that was deceiving, something that was a mystery to him.Unfortunately for Harry, it didn't look like fate was on his side this time.Draco had repeatedly showed his hate, his jealousy, and his ill temper for Harry, and this did not look like a good situation.Harry searched desperately for his wand.If he was in danger, the wand could at least act like his security blanket.He pulled it out from the bottom of his small travel bag, which was mostly full of his jacket.His only hope was to act as though nothing ever happened and carry his wand, just in case.

But this false face did not appeal to Draco Malfoy.

"So Harry Potter," he said his eyes glaring hungrily at Harry, "Thought you'd come back to haunt me?Thought you'd get the best of me?Hit him while he's down right?Well you're the one that's down now…EXPELLARMIUS!"Harry's wand flew out of his pocket, even as he desperately tried to contain it.

He backed slowly toward the door.Harry winced as Draco muttered another spell.Green light shot out of his wand, narrowly missing Harry's right ear.Harry flung open the door and ran blindly into the Canadian wilderness.It was no longer snowing, and he could see where he was heading: straight into the woods.Draco Malfoy thundered toward him.Harry came to the edge of a cliff overlooking a deep ravine.His foot caught a rock, causing him to lose his balance and stumble forward, tripping again over a tree root.He looked down over his shoulder into the grinding waterfall below.This is it, he thought, his mind racing wildly.This is the end. 

"All my life you've eluded me, Harry Potter, slipped through my fingers, but now, now is the end of you.You're a goner.Say goodbye."Draco's grin gleamed menacingly as he stood over Harry, pointing his wand at Harry's head.

"Goodbye," Harry croaked. 

And he apparated away.

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End file.
